Saturday, February 16, 2008

My plan this entire week was to take pictures of my knitting today, and wouldn't you know it, I wake up this morning to rain. Not just sprinkling rain, it was torrential downpour type rain accompanied by house shaking thunder (our house is on pier and beam...so it's a little bit easier to shake). There goes my lighting. But, I will take pictures today. I am tired of not having pictures of my knitting. I have 5 WIPs (yes 5, and yes, I have absolutely lost my mind), and all of them need pictures. I also have two FOs that need pictures, but I may wait until a sunny day to do that because lets face it, pictures of FOs need to be perfect. Its been a couple of hours since the rain has stopped, so I'm waiting to see if a little sunshine pokes through this afternoon. If not, you will have cloudy, poorly lit pictures of gorgeous knitting.

I'm going to wait until I have pictures to talk about most of my WIPs, but I have one that I can't wait any longer to talk about. Since Anne linked to my blog when she was talking about it, I figured now would be a good time. So, here goes...Tuesday the (12th) which just so happened to be my birthday, I checked my email to find one waiting from Anne asking me to test knit her new Pave Sock. This was one of the best birthday presents I could have gotten. I immediately replied that I would. Seriously, it's one of Anne's patterns, I would have said yes even if she emailed me asking if I would test knit a doggie doo themed sock (although I might knit that for the novelty of it). Fortunately the Pave Sock is far from doggie doo, it's the same stitch pattern as her Paris-Roubaix set. I spent most of that day at work thinking about what yarn I would use. It was a toss up between two of Sunshine Yarns colorways: Gillyweed and Snape. I'm sorry I can't give individual links to each of them, they are both sold out on her site, and you can't click on the pictures of sold out items. They are both about halfway down on the first sold out page. I finally decided on Gillyweed because the waves in the pattern sort of reminded me of seaweed, and I love green. Plus, Anne was using a blackish color, so I wanted to use something completely different. When I'm looking for a pattern, I love seeing it knit in lots of different colors, it gives you a really good idea of what the pattern will be like. Anne started knitting it much quicker than I did (I swear, she must knit at the speed of light), and she realized that the stitch pattern turned out completely different than she thought, beautiful, but different. It really doesn't look much like the Paris-Roubaix set at all. Its much tinier, which you wouldn't think would make a difference, but it did. We both did some knitting and comparing. She ended up reworking the stitch pattern to get the same effect as the Paris-Roubaix set, and now there are two patterns. You can read more about it in her blog post for today (she even has pictures). I am knitting the reworked one that isn't so tiny, and Anne is knitting the tinier version.....actually, she is probably knitting both. I will keep you updated (with pictures) on my progress. I promise, if I only take one picture today, it will be of the Pave Sock.

Now, for something completely new, I've decided to try my hand at spinning. I've been wanting to for a while, but I've been too intimidated. Mike got me a learn to spin kit with a drop spindle, roving, and a book on learning to spin for Christmas. It sat on my shelf taunting me for a month or so before I finally decided to just do it. It's been....interesting. I'm really awkward and I get really frustrated, but I do have some some lumpy twisted up fiber on my spindle which I think counts as yarn, so I guess I'm learning. Of course awkward and frustrated did not stop me from buying these gorgeous spindles. And I joined Spunky Ecletic'sfiber club to keep myself inspired and stocked with roving. I'm having trouble with drafting. I feel like I'm doing it wrong, but I guess I could be doing it right and I'm just not used to it. Any advice or links are appreciated along with links to gorgeous roving.

Sunday, February 10, 2008

I'm sure everyone has decided that I've disappeared forever, but I haven't.....I promise. I just got back from a huge oil and gas convention that my company attended. It's the biggest oil and gas convention all year. I took all my knitting with me in hopes of getting a ton done, but I didn't get to knit at all while I was there. We worked so hard at the convention that I was absolutely exhausted in the evenings. I was too tired to even think about knitting....that's really tired. It was fun, and we got to do a ton of marketing, but I am really glad to be home. It's nice to relax. Hopefully now I will be able to post more. The convention was only a couple of days, but we have been preparing for it for months. My department hasn't done much work on it, but my husband's department (yes we work together) put pretty much everything together. Basically since Christmas my husband has been working late nights and weekends to get everything wrapped up. It's been really stressful.

Hopefully you will get a knitting post out of me soon. Maybe even one with pictures!

Sunday, January 20, 2008

I've been bad at this blogging thing lately. Sorry about that, I've had a lot going on. You will be glad to know that even though I haven't been blogging, I've been very busy knitting. But, I haven't been very diligent about getting pictures of my knitting, so you will mostly get to use your imagination today.

I finished my Endpaper Mitts just after Christmas, and I am in love with them. They are so warm and soft, and the colors look great together. Hopefully I will have a picture of them finished and in all their glory soon, but for now, you can see them in progress here. They turned out a bit long on my fingers, but most fingerless mitts do. I think I must have short stubby fingers. I really enjoyed making them, and they were amazingly easy and quick to knit. I can see myself making another pair soon. Next time I think I will shorten my finger section and the wrist section so they are easier to wear with jackets. All in all, I love them. I am a bit embarrassed about one thing, it seems that even though I am usually a loose knitter, I am an extremely tight knitter in colorwork. The mediums size called for 3.00mm needles which is in between a US 2 and 3, but I had to go all the way up to 3.75mm (US 5) to get gauge. I guess it's not really that much, but it did surprise me.

I'm still chugging away on my Pomatomus mitts. They are actually coming along quite well. I've already finished one, and I am working on the thumb gusset on the other. I had to rip back my entire thumb gusset last night on the second mitt because I made a stupid mistake with my increases, but I should be able to catch up pretty quickly. Here's a picture of the first mitt when I was working on the thumb gusset, so you can get an idea of what they look like.I think I'm going to have a ton of yarn left over. I have two skeins of this color, and each skein is about 185 yards. I'm still on the first skein, and it looks like I will be able to finish the second mitt without touching the second skein. I love this colorway, and I'm really excited that I might be able to get another pair of mitts out of it.

I've started working on a pair of Zephyr socks (sorry no pictures yet). I'm using Blue Moon Fiber ArtsSocks That Rock Lightweight yarn in the Rain Forest Jasper colorway. The yarn is apparently self striping, which seems like it would look strange in this pattern, but it actually looks good....well at least I think so. This is such a quick knit. I can't believe how fast I'm able to fly through this pattern. It's become my easy knit for when I'm tired.

Thursday, January 3, 2008

I'm still alive, I promise. I haven't posted much, I've been busy with the holidays, but I'll be back soon. I have been knitting, taking pictures, and playing with Christmas goodies. Hopefully I'll end up posting Saturday.

Saturday, December 22, 2007

It decided to open up today, and what a day for it. It's really dark and rainy outside, so it was really hard to get a good picture. Forget about taking it without a flash. But that's ok, I'm just glad it happened on a day that I was off work so I could get a picture with natural light.

Friday, December 21, 2007

My Endpaper Mitts are coming along nicely. I just started on the thumb gusset. I've gotten used to using 2 strands of yarn, and I think I'm getting a lot faster at it. Here's a new picture of my progress.These mitts have opened up a whole new realm of knitting for me. I've now started scouring Ravelry for more stranded glove patterns. So far I've found 4 that I really want to knit: Corazon, the Anemoi Mittens, the Squirrelly Swedish Mittens, and the Norwegian Snail Mittens. I think the squirrels will be my next project...along with my Chevron Scarf. Ooo...but I'm also looking forward to Anne'scashmere mitts. Gah...so many to choose from. My Ravelry queue is huge.

In other news, my Phrag Silver Eagle is blooming. The flower isn't completely open, but of course I have pictures. Pictures were a bit difficult to take because the petals are still pretty closed up which caused a lot of shade on the rest of the flower, but you get the idea.

I've also included a picture that was taken with the flash. The flash flattened everything out a bit, but you can see the color better when I use it.This is my first blooming Phrag so I'm really excited about it.

I also have a couple of shots of my N. rafflesiana. It's been pitchering reliably for the past few months. See...sometimes you can grow lowlanders on a window sill. Oh, and the hair stuck on it is from my pets. When you have 3 dogs and 2 cats, hair gets stuck on everything.